


is this the real life

by verity



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Coffee Shops, Failwolf Friday, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-26
Updated: 2013-01-26
Packaged: 2017-11-26 23:16:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/655464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verity/pseuds/verity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"That's not coffee," Derek says, which is exactly what he'd said when Stiles had collected himself enough to move past the fact that <i>Derek</i> was <i>working</i> in <i>Stiles's favorite coffee shop</i> and get to the ordering part of standing in front of the counter with his mouth open. "That's—"</p><p>Stiles rolls his eyes. "Do you argue with all your customers?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	is this the real life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hatteress (goddammitstacey)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddammitstacey/gifts).



"So this is your dark secret." Stiles eyes his cup suspiciously. "Is this a dark roast, too? To match your soul?"

Next to him, Derek is dumping a packet of raw sugar into his cup. He pauses to glare.

"Okay, okay, _fine_ ," Stiles says. "Can I add milk?"

" _No_ ," Derek says.

Maisy, who was in the back when Stiles came into Café Au Lait, comes out and grabs the bin full of dirty dishes on the rack beside them. "Excuse me," she says, eyes flicking over to Derek. "You guys have a good afternoon, okay?" And then she _winks_.

"Oh my god," Stiles says.

Derek touches his elbow—which is weird, coming from Derek, considering that he usually grabs Stiles by the arm and drags him along—and says, "Come on."

—

While Derek is fishing his keys out of his pocket, Stiles finally takes a sip of his coffee. It's hot—there's a reason why milk was invented—but he doesn't burn his tongue or the roof of his mouth, so that's good. The coffee itself is… smooth. It tastes less like battery acid than he's used to. Hey, Stiles was raised on police station coffee, he doesn't exactly have the most refined palate.

"Not bad," he says, tugging on the door to the Camaro. "It's… coffee?"

Derek throws himself into the driver's seat. "It's a medium roast Ethiopian Harar."

"Coffee," Stiles agrees. "Is there a reason we're in your car? Because my baby is right over there, and I could be leaving with my coffee—my coffee that is not a hazelnut caramel mocha with half and half and extra whipped cream—"

"That's not coffee," Derek says, which is exactly what he'd said when Stiles had collected himself enough to move past the fact that _Derek_ was _working_ in _Stiles's favorite coffee shop_ and get to the ordering part of standing in front of the counter with his mouth open. "That's—"

Stiles rolls his eyes. "Do you argue with all your customers?"

Unexpectedly, Derek's shoulders slump. "Are you going to—you can't tell people. That I work here."

"You're afraid of setting a good example for the kids by being gainfully employed?" Stiles says. This whole thing is kind of weird. Not just Derek standing behind the register at Café Au Lait, but Derek slouched back against the driver's seat of the Camaro, smelling like coffee, looking like someone kicked his—do werewolves have puppies? "Don't they already know? Because you kind of smell like you're bathing in a river of Ethiopian Babar, dude."

"Don't tell anyone." Derek looks like he's trying to muster up the glowy alpha eyes and failing. "Just—don't."

—

Stiles lets himself be sworn to secrecy. He usually stops by Café Au Lait on his way home from his summer job at the library, not in the middle of the afternoon on his day off, so it's not like he ever sees Derek there. Sometimes he drives past the cafe on his way to work, just to catch a glimpse of the Camaro in the parking lot, but that's it. Stiles can reasonably pretend he doesn't know anything.

Maisy keeps trying to pry information of Stiles, though, and it's hard to resist her, especially because she knows Stiles's order by heart. "So," she says, steaming the half and half—breve, whatever—and smiling up at Stiles from behind the espresso machine. "How do you know Derek?"

"Uh… I just, I see him around sometimes?" Stiles says. "That's all. I didn't even know he worked here."

"Oh, yeah." Maisy nods. "He's been opening for three months now. All the nurses over at Kaiser are nuts over him."

"Really," Stiles says, raising an eyebrow.

—

Every year since they were ten, Stiles and Scott have gone camping for three days during the week before the school year begins. While Stiles is going to stay at the library doing new book processing one or two days a week after school starts up, he made sure before he started that he'd have the whole week off, because, tradition, right? Except, no, because Allison. Stiles really loves Allison, but he kind of hates her, too, sometimes, and not even because she tried to kill some of his friends. Mostly because she does stuff like this, getting back together with Scott just in time for him to call off the camping trip they've been planning all summer, their first solo adventure without Stiles's dad. It was going to be _awesome_.

There was a time when Stiles would have been, like, fuck it, and gone camping by himself. These days, he won't go camping in his own backyard without a werewolf and a supernatural emergency kit. 

Clearly, the only logical alternative is to go hang out at Café Au Lait until Derek cries and drink enough coffee that Stiles will vibrate out of his skin all night while he grinds mobs on WoW.

—

Derek isn't at the counter when Stiles comes in, although his Camaro is parked outside, so Stiles orders his usual from the really cute barista with pink bangs whose name he never remembers. No three-dollars-a-cup black coffee for Stiles this time. He's going to drown in sugar and cream, hell yeah.

Pink Bangs makes his hazelnut caramel half and half mocha with extra whip even better than Maisy does. Stiles is sipping from his ceramic mug and trying not to get whipped cream on his nose when Derek emerges from somewhere in the back to take the register from Pink Bangs. He sniffs, turns his head in Stiles's direction, narrows his eyes—and then a customer walks in.

"Hey, Kevin," Derek says. "Triple soy latte?"

"Sure thing," the guy says, already opening his wallet. He's wearing scrubs and sneakers and—Maisy didn't say that Derek was a hit with all the _hot male nurses_ , she definitely left that part out—smiling at Derek, who beams back. It's not even Derek's fake toothy grin, the one that makes Stiles annoyed and angry for reasons Stiles prefers not to examine too closely; no, Derek's giving this guy a real smile. 

For the next hour and a half, Stiles alternates between rereading _Ender's Game_ and watching Derek greet everyone who comes to the counter. Stiles is no longer attempting to arrange the batshittery that is his life into any kind of hierarchy, but if he did a top ten of Most Surreal Experiences 2011-2012, this would probably fall into the bottom half. Derek Hale, friendly and customer-service-y, making lattes and mochas and macchiatos (Stiles doesn't know what those are, but they sound fancy), getting aggressively tipped by ladies and fellows alike? That's fucking weird.

For his part, Derek seems to be doing his best to ignore Stiles, at least until his shift ends. Then he comes out from behind the counter and sits across the table from Stiles. "Why are you here?"

"I come here all the time." Stiles sticks his receipt into _Ender's Game_ to mark his place. "Just ask Pink Bangs. She knows me."

"Pi—" Derek glances back at the counter. "Jennifer?"

"Yeah, I'm bad with names," Stiles says. "But I tip well! That counts, right?"

"Just answer the question," Derek says. It's not fair: Stiles isn't prepared to deal with Derek stubbly and undershaven in the sunlight, the way Derek's t-shirt gapes at the neck when Derek leans forward, or knowing what Derek looks like when he's happy, fuck.

"This coffee shop is big enough for the two of us," Stiles says. "Or did you move to file for sole custody behind my back? That's harsh, dude."

Derek sighs. " _Stiles_."

"Look, Scott ditched me and—I don't know, I thought I would leave the house instead of spending five straight days partying and mainlining Mountain Dew."

"Partying?" Derek says.

"On WoW. World of Warcraft," Stiles clarifies. "It's an MMO—Massively Multi—"

"I know what an MMO is," Derek says. "Go home."

—

Derek doesn't actually turn up at Stiles's bedroom window that often, and rarely without warning, so Stiles isn't expecting to go down to the kitchen for Doritos and come back to Derek lying on the bed, paging through one of the Neal Stephenson books Stiles has checked out from the library. "How can you hold this up?" Derek says.

"You'd be surprised what I can do with these puny human hands." Stiles leans against the door frame. "Like… I'm not good at the death threats part of these exchanges. Why are you here? On my bed?"

Derek smiles, but it's just a sarcastic little tug at his lips. "Why did you show up where I work?"

"I was bored." Stiles shrugs. "You're always creepily stalking us."

"I'm the alpha," Derek says, brow furrowing. "I'm responsible—"

"I was just curious, okay?" Stiles says. "And bored. I think you seriously underestimate how much random shit I do solely because I am easily bor—"

"I like it," Derek says. "I like my job. It is the only thing I am any fucking good at, so if you could just—lay off. And not bother me where I work. I would appreciate that."

"Okay," Stiles says after a moment. He gets it.

—

What Stiles _doesn't_ get is how when Derek eventually caves and makes him a hazelnut caramel breve mocha with extra whipped cream, it still isn't as good as Jennifer's.

"How is it?" Derek asks, climbing into the passenger seat of the Jeep.

Stiles has learned how to lie to werewolves. He leans over and gives Derek a creamy, coffee-flavored kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [ladyofthelog](http://ladyofthelog.tumblr.com) on tumblr.


End file.
